Todd Babiak is the co-founder of Story Engine, a consultancy based in Vancouver that uses narrative to solve business problems and build brands. In 2011, one of his clients, the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, changed his life because he fell in love with place-branding. Many clients later, his strategy work for Tasmania turned into a job, which led to another job, possibly the best job in the world: CEO of Brand Gold Coast.

David Gilbert serves as President and CEO of Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, an organization dedicated to making Greater Cleveland the nation’s foremost destination for amateur sporting events and activities, and Destination Cleveland, the region’s destination marketing and management organization. He re-established the Sports Commission in 2000 and assumed his role with Destination Cleveland in 2011. From April 2015 through December 2017, David also served as the president and CEO of the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee for the Republican National Convention.

Greater Cleveland Sports Commission is responsible for attracting, creating, managing, and enhancing significant sporting and competitive events. Since 2000, the organization has attracted over 200 events including the NFL Draft, MLB All-Star Game, NBA All-Star Weekend and NCAA Women’s Final Four in addition to the upcoming 2024 Pan-American Maters Games. These events have contributed more than $820 million in local economic impact.

At Destination Cleveland, Gilbert is responsible for carrying out the organization’s mission to drive economic impact and stimulate community vitality by positioning and promoting Cleveland as an exciting, vibrant destination. Under his leadership, visitation and economic impact increased dramatically for nine consecutive years (2011-2019) before the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic. During that time, annual visitation grew at a pace greater than the U.S. visitation growth rate.

Gilbert serves as vice president on the board of the International Children’s Games, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, and sits of the boards of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland and the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board of the Department of Commerce. He was named by Crain’s Cleveland Business as one of Cleveland’s “30 influencers of the past 30 years,” Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and in 2016, he received the SME Cleveland Business Executive of the Year Award.

Gilbert has a Bachelor of Arts degree in marketing from The Ohio State University and an MBA from Cleveland State University.

Alison Migneault, Chief Marketing Officer with Tourism Kingston (Ontario, Canada), is responsible for developing and guiding the Destination Management and Marketing Organization’s leisure marketing; stewarding the city’s place brand and integrating it across portfolios and partner programs; managing the organization’s agencies of record and in-house team; and developing and leading special projects.

Since joining the organization in 2019, Alison has expanded adoption of the place brand to community partners; skillfully guided marketing programs through the COVID-19 pandemic; prioritized inclusive communication practices; developed and led a growing in-house marketing team; and established a comprehensive research insights program. Under her leadership, Tourism Kingston’s work has been recognized with 20+ national and international awards.

With more than 20 years of experience in marketing and communications, Alison’s strengths include market research, strategic planning, creative development, and brand management, which together create compelling brand-building and place-making programs. She has an innate understanding of authentic marketing and grounds her work in a deep knowledge of the audience. Alison’s experience spans the tourism, post-secondary education, not-for-profit, and charitable sectors. She holds a master’s degree in Canadian Studies and an honours bachelor of arts degree in communication studies and has also completed executive leadership training.

Prior to joining Tourism Kingston, Alison held a senior marketing role with Queen’s University for a decade and worked with a range of portfolios including recruitment, research, alumni relations, and health sciences. Alison was also Festival Director for the Kingston Canadian Film Festival for eight years, securing government funding, expanding programming, and raising awareness of Canadian film and filmmakers. In 2010, Alison co-founded Kingston Animal Rescue, a registered charity dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating, and rehoming animals in need. She donates countless hours as a board member, volunteer, and foster for animals.

With over 15 years expertise in communications and award-winning marketing projects, Aoife is the place brand and marketing lead for Limerick, Ireland’s third largest city. Aoife has responsibility for promotion and key messaging around the new Limerick narrative and heads up the Brand Limerick project, having worked with M&C Saatchi to create a new revitalized, ambitious and international identity for Limerick. Her current focus across investment, tourism, education and living is driving brand awareness and improving perceptions of Limerick as a desirable destination.

Aoife’s career has spanned tourism capital development and consultancy to third level lecturing. She holds a research Masters in Tourism Marketing and Semiotics and a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing Management.

Nur Özkan Erbay, the Founder-Coordinator of Türkiye Brand Office of the Communications Directorate of Turkish Presidency. She has more than 20 years of experience as the media executive, bureau chief, representative, correspondent, analyst, researcher and columnist in diplomacy, security, economy circles and media industry in İstanbul, Ankara, New York and Washington, DC. She completed her undergraduate degree at Istanbul University's Faculty of Communications Journalism Department. She received her master's in Political and International Journalism from Georgetown University.

Erbay also took courses and seminars in Foreign Policy, Political Communication and Journalism at Johns Hopkins University, ABC Television, and the White House in Washington, DC. She completed her second master's degree at the Police Academy Of Türkiye, Institute of Security Sciences. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate in International Relations. 

She has many exclusive reports, interviews, and analyses and three books written in English and Turkish. Occasionally appeared on various national and international media outlets about International Relations, Diplomacy, International Security, Social Media, and Terrorism where she shared her insights at international outlets such as Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, BBC World. She also hosted a weekly TV program titled “Küresel Oyun” (Global Game) on 24 TV between 2022 and 2023. In 2014-2016 she produced and hosted TV programs at TRT Türk titled “Bakış Açısı” (Point of View) and “Siyasetin Seyri”.

As of May 2022, she has been serving as the Founder-Coordinator of the Türkiye Nation Brand Office, Directorate of Communications of the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye. As the head of Türkiye Brand Office, she coordinates nation-branding efforts with stakeholders from defense, tourism, academia, media, and public sectors nationwide.

During her first year of tenure, Erbay organized the Türkiye Nation Brand Forum in İstanbul, the country’s very first nation branding event that hosted prominent experts and scholars in the field of nation branding from all around the world. Many projects have been carried out since then under her leadership such as the “Türkiye-Qatar Nation Branding Panel” and “Türkiye Pavilion” at the margin of FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar; “Century of Türkiye” panel series and events held in several cities in Germany; nation branding event in Kuwait and projects that aim to promote the usage of “Türkiye” as the country name around the world.

Türkiye Brand Office leads initiatives that can reflect the country’s global scale potential with a strategic, encompassing, and 360-degree approach to strengthen the Türkiye brand in the world.

Jess Radford is the Acting CEO at Brand Tasmania.

Brand Tasmania is a statutory authority and State Government agency tasked with taking a best practice approach to ensure the Tasmanian brand is strengthened locally, nationally and internationally, and is promoted as a key asset of the Tasmanian community.

In her role, Jess leads Brand Tasmania’s corporate, strategic, and business planning activities, and manages Brand Tasmania’s government relations through a client-service agenda. Together with her colleagues at Brand Tasmania she works with partners on inventive projects to unite Tasmanians around a central brand expression, through communication and action.

Nicky loves turning strategy into reality. With a background in financial communications and designing customer-centric learning experiences for senior teams, Nicky has worked with organisations to implement strategies across North America, UK and Europe, Japan, China and Australasia.

Nicky currently leads New Zealand Story’s strategic partnerships with a focus on the private sector. She believes in the power of collective branding and scaling individual impact through bold collaboration. Nicky is responsible for developing growth pathways for New Zealand exporters, based on authentically leveraging the brand of New Zealand for tangible commercial results.

Eveline Vincke is the Place Brand Manager at the City of Ghent and is dedicated to strengthening Ghent's image. She creates awareness for the Ghent brand and supports stakeholders in implementing the brand values into their projects.

Eveline began her career in the advertising sector, where she worked at renowned agencies such as Duval Guillaume and McCann Erickson. She holds a PhD in Communication Sciences (Ghent University), with a focus on communication through behavior.

Today, Eveline focuses her expertise – and love for Ghent – on making the brand tangible throughout the city. Her work contributes to creating an attractive and competitive city and has a positive impact on the well-being and pride of its residents.